EOSC EDEN – Slides on Towards Understanding Identification, Selection and Appraisal in Contemporary Digital Preservation Practice at the EOSC Symposium 2025
Abstract
This presentation was delivered at the EOSC Symposium 2025 (Breakout Session 3: Long-term Data Retention), and provides an overview of current digital preservation practices, with a focus on institutional approaches to identifying, selecting, and appraising data for long-term preservation. It presents preliminary findings from a survey conducted within EOSC EDEN Task 1.1 and discusses frameworks and practices used to determine preservation-worthy data. The session included live audience interaction via Menti; however, the results are not included in the slides. Slide 4 was revised following feedback received during the discussion. A video of the live session can be found here.
Full text
Towards Understanding Identification, Appraisal and Selection in Contemporary Digital Preservation Practice Maria Benauer (she/her) EOSC Symposium 2025 2.–5. November 2025, Brussels, Belgium Grant agreement 101188015
If we cannot preserve everything, we need to decide what matters… What is worth Cost preserving long-term Discipline-specific needs Growing data volume How long is long-term Foreseeing future access forms Quality assessment Carbon footprint Changing relevance over time 2EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer
If we can’t preserve everything, what criteria should guide what we keep? 3EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer
Identification, Appraisal, Selection –everything in order? Identification Appraisal Selection Digital preservation What exists and might be worth preserving What has value and why What we commit to keep What we commit to care for “The process of determining whether records and other materials have permanent (archival) value.” (CTS Glossary) “The process of identifying which records to retain because of their enduring value.” (SAA Dictionary of Archives Terminology ) “The process of seeking and receiving materials from any source by transfer, donation, or purchase.” (SAA Dictionary of Archives Terminology ) “The series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary.” (CTS Glossary) 4EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer
Survey on preservation practices •Ran between May and June 2025 •250 responses from 31 countries and 19 organisational types •Findings will be published by the end of December 2025 Scope of the questions •Organisational profile •Use of frameworks & guidelines •Definition of „long-term“ preservation •Pathways of data into the archive •Practices in quality assessment of data Survey on Identification, Selection and Appraisal Practices for Long-Term Preservation of Data in EOSC EDEN 5EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer Created with Datawrapper by Laura Molloy
•Most organisations rely on self-deposit by researchers •Funder-mandated deposits and proactive monitoring (inviting depositors) as secondary consistent strategies Identifying objects for longterm preservation 6EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer
Appraising and selecting objects for long-term preservation (I) The great majority of the respondents perform quality assessments at the point of ingest About 60% of them apply all our suggested quality indicators (metadata, technical, and content quality) 7EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer
Appraising and selecting objects for long-term preservation (II) Whereas there is great variation across organisations in assessing content and information quality….. *org type „Archive” has been rescaled to a factor of 100 for better readability. * 8EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer
…there is high agreement on criteria and routines for checking technical quality. Appraising and selecting objects for long-term preservation (III) 9EOSC EDEN WP1 –Maria Benauer